DIARY
VICKI WOODS Iate the first eel of my life last week, when I went to the annual conference of the Liberal Democrats in Brighton. I'd asked for lobster, at English's fish restau- rant, but Jocelyn Stevens's English Her- itage office lunch seemed to have cleaned them out. Eel is a bland, rather tasteless kind of a beast, I discovered, but it came swimming in a hot peppery parsley sauce, which gave it a bit of a bite. I won't labour the metaphor: anyone who can read knows by now that the Liberal Democrat confer- ence is a bland and rather tasteless kind of a beast, not to mention boring beyond belief, and the hot peppery bits completely passed me by until I read about them in the outraged Tory press. It was better outside the conference hall than inside it. I watched limos called TUN 1, PAK 1, IND 1 and BOT 1 arriving at the entrance to disgorge their LibDem-friendly visitors. Mesdames TUN 1 were glossily blonde and glam- orously dressed, with a bit of a Mona Bauwens look about them. Sir David Steel held the door open for Mmes TUN 1 as he came back from lunch. He tossed his cigar aside, laughing uproariously and looking nattily dressed and well-lunched, before going in to discuss Opportunity and Inde- pendence for All (Tax and Benefits Policy Paper).
The taxi-driver who took me from the station to the hotel said, `Metropole? In You get, my love,' and chatted genially for the five-minute ride. 'Ooh, you want to watch those fancy prices at the Metropole. Don't you go buying a round of drinks for anybody, my dear.' I nodded and smiled and uttered the neutral paralinguistic nois- es that any woman over 26 has learned to employ with male servitors and functionar- ies — neither too warm (she's asking for it) nor too cold (snotty bitch). 'Not that a young lady like you will need to go buying a round of drinks, of course,' he added care- fully. Young lady. My love. My dear. I was three days off my 47th birthday as I sat there in his cab. Most days I accept these laboured gallantries and tendresses from taxi-drivers and hall-porters. Some days I just wish to God they'd call me madam. At the Metropole I was addressed as 'Then', as in, 'Here is your room-key, then.' The American next to me and the Japanese next to him were both called sir. The best thing — the very best thing — about staying in foreign hotels is that from the moment she walks in a woman is addressed by everyone from manager to femme de chambre with the perfectly ordinary, impersonal and indifferent politeness that is routinely due to one's age, status and wallet. In France, I m called madame, in Italy signora and in America ma'am, without edge, irony or greasy gallantly. It's no wonder women love gender-neutral titles: if I were Tessa Blackstone, I'd rather be doctor than baroness, too.
The Brighton Metropole is the equiva- lent of the Meurice in Paris, you might say; both big, 19th-century hotels with a prime position and lovely public rooms. The Meurice's meanest bedrooms are unexcep- tional, in that the furnishings all look as though they go together. The Metropole's bedrooms do not have this remarkable quality. My bathroom had an artless melange of pale green tiles, dark blue tiles, pale blue walls, a green plastic sink veined with white plastic in simulation of marble, a white bath bordered with yellow deal, white plastic shower curtains and brown towels (chosen to blend with the inharmonious whole). Well, at least it's clean, I thought. Then I read the Guest Questionnaire. Eighty-four questions of a very picky kind, from Did the hotel have details of your reservation?' down to 'Was the food served at the correct temperature?' I felt it was a bit naff of the Metropole's management to expect their guests to find the time or incli- nation to plough through 84 questions (some with multiple-choice boxes to tick) but I grew very resentful at some of the detail: Was the bathroom clean in all areas?' Was the bedroom clean in all areas?' Were the public toilets clean and in good working order?' Please! Don't ask me, ask a chambermaid. I began to shy away leerily from various 'areas' of bath- room and bedroom and by the end of my stay I wanted to put plastic bags over my feet on getting out of bed. Oh, and the net curtains, I should tell you, were filthy.
At Morgans Hotel in New York (`liere is your room-key — ma'am') there are no net curtains, only grey venetian blinds, and the furnishings all tone beautifully because they're black. Black, charcoal, dove-grey and black. Very Eighties. I have been chan- nel-flicking, mad with jetlag, for hours, looking for Gerry Adams. I wanted to see his lips moving in perfect synch with his Ulster voice for the first time in my life, but Gerry isn't making news here despite what you read in the English papers. And even if he was, there'd be no one to record it. Every available news reporter on 35 chan- nels is out in Los Angeles covering the O.J. Simpson murder trial. Not that the trial has begun, nor even the jurors picked yet: many of them being disqualified because of being unable to tear themselves away from 'The O.J. Simpson murder trial' on television. Many potential jurors are busy trying to disqualify themselves by pleading more hardship than Lloyd's names, as well they might. American jurors earn five dollars a day, and for this they'll be sequestered in a Los Angeles hotel from now until Febru- ary, or March, or late April (estimates leap up with every bulletin). During their incar- ceration they cannot of course, watch any television, especially television that covers the 'O.J. Simpson murder trial'. This leaves them only the shopping and weather chan- nels. What very strange people these are. But at least they call me ma'am.
'To be honest, my wife's not too happy with the new wallpaper.'
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